Don’t choose the champion.

Choose the sceptic.

When embarking on change, our natural instinct is to “… water the plants and forget the rocks.” We choose several champions with which to lead the charge and “champion the cause”. That’s certainly the easiest option.

But is it the most effective?

What if, we actually mislabel the champion? What if the person we think is the champion is actually the early-adopter? They’re different and they’re also not the one to champion the change. The early adopter has great enthusiasm but there’s a persona that your colleagues will believe more. I was reminded of this by Dr Deborah Netolicky in her interview on the GameChangers podcast today.

What if the sceptic might actually be your best champion?

I recall working with a client who was a classic sceptic type. He would often ask questions that came across as aggressive but were actually masking his processing. Questions like:

“How do we know this actually works?”

Although, at the time, I viewed this as push-back, it was actually a valid question. So, I answered it and I moved on.

And then I spent more time getting to know him.

He came into the kitchen one lunch-time with a metal box. I enquired about the box. It was a geocache box. He loved geocaching. I let him talk for a long time about geocaching and I knew a little about it so I was able to ask deeper questions about it.

I found common ground.

I asked him if he had ever thought about using geocaching in his lessons. He hadn’t. I asked him if we might plan an Immersion using geocaching. The excitement began to build.

So, that’s what we did. The sceptic led the charge. He planned the geocaches alongside the Science teacher who knew the best spots to gather samples and the Technology teacher built online content linked to QR codes that would be planted at each geocache. Our sceptic even suggested an app we might use to pull everything together.

And the students had the best day out doing real, hands-on learning. It was all championed by the sceptic. If he was on board, everyone was onboard.

Get to know your sceptic. Invite their questions, they hold you accountable. Before long, they’ll be your best champion.